Nad Sylvan – Spiritus Mundi – Merging Progressive Rock with Irish Literature

By: Carlos Martin Schwab

Nad Sylvan is an American-born Swedish singer with a prolific career in progressive rock, where he has collaborated in projects with former Genesis guitarist, Steve Hackett, as well as with Roine Stolt in his band, Agents of Mercy.

Recently, Nad released Spiritus Mundi, his seventh solo album. This work centers around the poetry of Nobel Prize-winning William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), one of the most important Irish writers in history, and who Sylvan calls “one of the finest poets to come out of Ireland.”

He says: “The lyrics for the song, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, that I initially sang on the previous album are also from Yeats, so I just thought why not just use some really fantastic lyrics, so I don’t have to write them this time [Laughs]. It was nice not having to write the lyrics and focus solely on the music.”

As for the meanings in the songs, Sylvan prefers to leave those up to interpretation. “Yeats had a lot of double meanings to his poems and I’m yet to find out some of those, but just the sound of the words and the meaning that I could grasp, I thought it was absolutely wonderful.”

Spiritus Mundi marks a shift musically from Sylvan’s previous outing, focusing more on the lyrics and vocals in tandem with gorgeous orchestration and timely melodies. This can be heard from the onset of the album’s opening track “The Second Coming”, one of Yeats’ most famous poems, or in the track, “To an Isle in the Water”, performed with a few acoustic guitars, flutes and strings.

“If you compare it to my previous albums, the music is a bit sparser, there’s more air. The whole album is based around my vocals and Andrew Laitres’s guitars spiced up with some orchestral stuff. I worked very hard on the vocals on this one. I would link bits together I thought really worked and then I would go back to them and do take another take on a word that could be more emphasized. I was even more meticulous with the vocals this time, down to the smallest breath due to the nature of the music,”said Sylvan.

Besides keyboards, orchestration, electric and acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and programming, Nad Sylvan sings on most of the album and is accompanied at times by Andrew Laitres, who worked with him on his previous album.

Together, they put together different harmonies and duets that manage to become the highlights of the album. Steve Hackett on 12-string guitars and Tony Levin (bass) also appear as guest musicians.

On the other hand, we find a series of varied guitars and keyboards, as well as a beautiful orchestration that makes each song and section invaluable moments of the album. Even Laitres has his spaces of protagonism as in the second song, “Sailing to Byzantium,” which is one of the symbols of the album and one of the anthems of Sylvan’s work. Here the Swedish singer shows us all his versatility, full of stylistic and melodic changes and turns.

The remarkable thing about Nad Sylvan’s work is the work of adapting any verse and setting it to music. It must be clear that this is never an easy job. The music not only has to fit the lyrics, but it must also be able to reflect the intention of the author who wrote the poem.

The album’s influences range from early Genesis, through Supertramp and much of the progressive rock of the ’70s. There are also things from Marillion, which can give them the vision of a very broad and detailed album that will need more than one listen to realize all the small detailed contributions and arrangements in it.